These Flickers of Light
by AnotherGirlWithAStory
Summary: Running away from home. It was an odd sentence and one that he truly never thought he would say out loud. Not in the way he just did in his mind. He had truly run away from home. He had left his parents. He had left his brother. Sirius felt the ache grow stronger. His mother had chased him out of the house.
1. Part I

**Title** : These Flickers of Light

 **Characters** : Since I'm only allowed to have three characters present at all times I decided to explain who's going to be present chapter by chapter.

 **Prompts** : [Restriction] There will be only three characters present in the story at all times. No less, no more. [Title] These Flickers of Light. [Issues] Your character has insomnia. [Random prompt] Your character must be injured in some way, [dialogue] I've never been more disappointed in my life and [word] television. Minimum 750 words, maximum 3, 000.

 **AN** : So, for the final round of _The_ _One Character Only Competition_ the challenge was to write a three-shot based on the prompts above.

 **Warning** : Mentions of abuse but not in detail.

 **Word Count** : 1, 116

* * *

 **Part I** : Sirius Black, Euphemia Potter and Walburga Black.

Sirius Black couldn't sleep. He remembered hearing the word insomnia once on Remus television and couldn't help thinking that's exactly what he was experiencing. His thoughts were too loud and his body was too sore for him to close his eyes and descend into the comfort that was darkness. On the few occasions where he had tried the damn voice of his mother echoed in his ears and made him open his eyes. He was grateful for the stars that he could watch as they flickered on the ceiling above him. They made him relax. It became easier to ignore the dull aching pain in his chest which reminded him of his bruised ribs and the concussion which meant that Euphemia would check up on him every few hours. He didn't know what was worse. Being in pain or not being able to stop thinking about the event which had ended with him running away from home.

Running away from home. It was an odd sentence and one that he truly never thought he would say out loud. Not in the way he just did in his mind. He had truly run away from home. He had left his parents. He had left his brother. Sirius felt the ache grow stronger. His mother had chased him out of the house.

* * *

"I've never been more disappointed in my life." Walburga had screamed at him.

Sirius was standing in front of his mother wearing his pyjamas. A loosely fitted shirt and a pair of grey sweatpants which hung low just below his hip. He tried not to show how shocked he was. It was practically the middle of the night. Sirius didn't understand why his mother had decided to walk into his room in the middle of the night when she rarely did so during the day but he was too tired to think about that. Instead of wondering about her sudden appearance Sirius thought about how odd it was that it was a nose piercing which had pushed his mother over the edge.

He rolled his eyes. He expected this to end, just like all the other rants, with Walburga giving him some kind of punishment before sending him away. Maybe she would yell at him for rolling his eyes. But that's not at all what happened. Instead, Sirius felt a stinging on his cheeks. He hadn't noticed that his mother had crossed the room, he didn't react when she smacked him across the face. Thousands of shiny lights flickered in front of his eyes as he turned to face her again. It wasn't the first time he had been hit and it probably wouldn't be the last. But his mother had never hit him quite like that before.

Maybe he screamed at her after that? Sirius didn't remember. Did anyone in the family wake up? No, he was the only one there. At least Sirius thought so. All he knew for sure was that when he found himself staggering towards the porch of the Potter household, his body was aching, his clothes were sticking to parts of him and his throat was sore. It almost felt as if he had been trying to swallow nails.

Euphemia opened the door. Her grey hair hung loosely around her shoulders and she wore the kind of clothes which surely would have made Sirius own mother faint. Muggle clothes. Jeans and a thick, long-sleeved shirt in a pastel purple colour. She didn't give Sirius any time to say anything. She took one step forward and put her hands on each side of the teenager's face. Tears spilled down her hazel brown eyes, which she had passed down to her son, and her lips trembled.

"My poor, poor boy," she whispered brokenly. "What happened to you?"

Sirius forced himself to smile. "My mum didn't like the piercing."

Anger flashed across her face. A much more intense anger than Sirius had ever seen before and it almost made him want to back away from her. Then he remembered who he was with and shame latched onto him like a leech.

"Well, I love it, Sirius. It looks very nice on you," Euphemia said before slowly coming to stand next to him. She was trying to sound calm and reassuring but she couldn't hide the way her voice quivered. He moaned when her hand came in contact with the side of his stomach. "I'm sorry love."

Sirius felt like he was going to be sick. He didn't know if it was because of the way Euphemia had touched his sore ribs or because of something else. Quite frankly it didn't matter. His head rolled forward and he could see blood dripping from him, although he didn't know from where, and onto the floor. Again, fear gripped his heart and for a moment it almost felt like it was going to stop beating.

"I'm sorry about the floors," he saw Euphemia glance down to the floors and shrug. "I'll clean it up. I promise."

The elderly woman scoffed. "You're not going to clean it up. Because I won't let you. You are going to take a deep breath and tell me what happened to you."

"I told you," he forced himself to smile. "She didn't like the piercing."

Sirius knew that wasn't the answer Euphemia was looking for but it was all he could give her and she didn't ask him again. Sirius was barely aware of where she was taking him. His head felt like cotton and although he heard what she was telling him it felt as if his brain needed some time to decipher her words even if they weren't complicated to understand. The world was spinning and for a moment Sirius didn't know what would be best, to faint or to throw up. He felt himself being sat down on something soft. The couch, he noticed when he forced his eyes open for a split of a second. Euphemia's face was white as she lowered him down onto the couch.

"I'll be right back."

Sirius reached out to grab her arm. He ignored the pain that went through his body as he pleadingly looked at her. "Please, don't send me back to them."

In the following moment Euphemia looked exactly like James when he was determined. There was something so powerful in her eyes that Sirius couldn't help but feel comforted by the sheer sight of it. She sat down on her knees next to the couch and held his hands while leaning forward to kiss his forehead. Euphemia tilted her head to the side.

"You are never going back to that place," she kissed his forehead again. "I promise."


	2. Part II

**Part II** : Sirius Black and James Potter

 **Word Count** : 1, 000

* * *

Sirius had insisted that he could sleep in the guest room but even a barely awake James proved to be stubborn as few. James had looked at him from behind the glasses and pointedly said that either Sirius stay in his room, in his bed, so that he could keep an eye on him or James would come with him into the guest room and keep an eye on him there. Since the bed was much smaller and James would probably end up breaking his body; Sirius decided to do as his friend told him. James' bed was big enough for the both of them and they could share that one without James turning into a stiff old man with cracking bones and sore muscles in the process. Sirius had pretended to be annoyed as he followed his best friend into his room but the biggest part of him was grateful that James would have rather walked around with the mobility of a ninety-year-old than have Sirius sleep in the guest room.

Sirius glanced to the side. James was normally an energetic sleeper. He would move around and had even on one occasion thrown a pillow across the room without being aware of doing it. Sirius smiled at the thought as he looked at the boy with the raven-coloured hair. His cheeks were pinker than usual and wrinkles covered his forehead while he pouted in his sleep. Sirius wanted to be asleep too. But sadly, his mind and body didn't really care what he wanted. His mind was too busy reliving the moment which had brought him there and his body was too sore. It felt like he was breaking from the inside no matter how he positioned his arms or any other parts of his body.

"Is this the moment when I'm supposed to tell you that it's freaky to look at people while they sleep?" James slurred when he spoke and if it hadn't been for the moonlight shining down on them through the open window then Sirius wouldn't have seen the way James squinted at him.

Sirius shrugged. "You can if you want to."

"I don't," James yawned as he forced himself into a sitting position. Although it took Sirius longer he copied his best friend's movement and soon they sat next to each other, shoulder to shoulder. "How come you aren't asleep?"

There was a cautious undertone in James voice. As if he was afraid that something would happen or that he would do something stupid. Sirius didn't like it. He didn't want his best friend to walk on eggshells around him because of what had happened just a few hours earlier.

"What time is it?"

"Uh," James pretended to look around in the general direction of the clock. "I think it's time for you to talk about why you aren't asleep."

An involuntary shiver travelled down his spine and Sirius looked down on his intertwined hands. His mother had nagged him about biting his nails as a child and teenager. She had told him time and time again that it was an awful habit. It was ironic really since he had never bitten his nails ever. But then again, by nagging him about biting his nails his mother efficiently stopped him from ever beginning. Maybe it did have some benefit, Sirius thought as he rubbed the tips of his fingers against each other.

"I keep thinking about it," he eventually whispered just loud enough for James to hear, as indicated by the sigh that came from Sirius right side and the arm that leaned against his upper back. "I just ran away from home Prongs. A few hours ago, I officially left my family. This is my first night away from them."

He blinked several times to keep the tears at bay as he said the words with quivering lips. James pulled him closer and Sirius reached out to grab a hold of something, anything, that could keep him from sailing away; because it felt like something was going to drag him away unless he held onto something tightly. That something became James arm and once Sirius got a firm grip around it he sank lower into bed, clinging to his best friend as if he was an anchor, while James remained seated. Sirius didn't have to tell him that while one part of him was happy to have gotten away, the other part of him wanted nothing more than to go back. It wasn't logical, it didn't make sense, but that's what he felt. And since when have feelings ever made sense?

"I'm sorry Pads." The young man didn't speak as loud as he normally would and there was a mixture of feelings which he could never hide from Sirius.

James could stop himself from asking about the abuse, even though he really wanted to know what had happened so that he could make them pay for it, and he could stop himself from raging about it even if he wanted to. But he could never hide the emotions that took control of his body and mind when he was reminded of what had happened. James had been taught to always do the right thing; and until he found Sirius bruised and battered on the couch he had rarely thought about doing something considered wrong.

"I know…" James coughed to stabilise his voice. "I know that this doesn't make everything alright but technically you didn't run away from home."

Sirius took a deep breath. "What do you mean?"

"Well, you have two homes. You ran from one home to another," James held his breath. Never had he ever listened so carefully as he did in that moment. Then he heard Sirius laugh and say that he guessed so. James scooted down into a lying position, still with Sirius resting his head on his chest and with his own arm wrapped around his best friend's upper body. He sighed in content. "I'm glad you're here."


	3. Part III

**Part III** : Sirius Black, Fleamont Potter and Euphemia Potter.

 **Word Count** : 836

* * *

Sirius had never been the reason for anyone's tears. At least not that he knew of. He assumed that his parents had never cried over him anyway. They had most certainly argued over him and cursed his name or the fact that he had been born at all; but cried over him, never. So, when Sirius came sneaking down the grand stairs and towards the kitchen at five in the morning after spending hours of trying to fall into the same kind of peaceful slumber as his best friend and found Euphemia crying in Fleamont's arms, Sirius was unsure of what to do. Fleamont was leaning against the wall while Euphemia was leaned over him. Euphemia's entire body was shaking while he gently stroked her arms and back.

"But he's here now," Fleamont whispered before leaning down to kiss her grey hair. "He came straight here and you took care of him. You did exactly what he needed you to do."

Sirius held his breath for as long as he humanly could while waiting for Euphemia to say something, anything. He could feel the hair on his arms stand up and a shiver went down his spine as he practically stood on his toes waiting.

"But we should have gotten him out sooner," Euphemia said. "We've known about this for years and we never did anything to get him out of there."

Sirius didn't know if he wanted to laugh or cry. He took a few careful steps backwards so that he could sit down on the last step of the stairs. James would have said something similar. If he found out that one of his friends were hurting and there was something that he could have done then he would have blamed himself. Now Sirius knew where he got it from.

"E, my darling, the system is at fault here, not you or me," Fleamont said in that soft baritone of a voice. His grey hair was as messy as James were and they had almost the same body type. Although Fleamont wasn't as muscular and he had a certain dignity which Sirius was sure James would have too in a few years. "We have done everything we could up until this point."

"Up until this point?" Euphemia repeated and asked the question that Sirius wanted to have answered.

Fleamont nodded. "Well obviously now we can do more than we could before. He ran away from home."

Sirius released a sigh of relief. For some reason, although he couldn't justify it to himself, he had assumed that something bad was going to follow Fleamont's statement. But he didn't, couldn't, expect Fleamont to want to help him even more than both he and Euphemia already had. Or maybe he could? Sirius sat completely silently and still at the last step of the stairs and wondered in his hazy sleep-deprived state of mind if he was supposed to talk to them. Was he supposed to make his presence known or was he supposed to thank them for helping him more when he technically didn't know what it meant?

"He needs a room," Fleamont laughed at Euphemia's words and Sirius saw him nod. "It needs to be next to James, obviously, because he wouldn't have it any other way."

"Who wouldn't have it any other way?" Fleamont wondered with a teasing tone in his voice. "James or Sirius?"

"Both." They replied at the same time and laughed.

While Sirius watched them plan he thought his heart would combust into a million tiny pieces. He had never seen anyone cry over him; at least not because they were worried. And he had never seen anyone plan for him, include him in their lives, the way that Euphemia and Fleamont were at that moment. For a few seconds it didn't matter that his body was still aching and that he hadn't slept a wink that night; his heart was racing inside his chest and he couldn't stop smiling.

When he and James were younger, the first time that Sirius spent a holiday with the Potters, he remembered that Euphemia had talked about life. He couldn't for his life remember why they had ended up discussing life but somehow, they had and Euphemia had said that life consisted of both darkness and light at the same time. This could be applied to people too; no one carried only dark or only light within them. No one was ever only good or only bad. There was a little bit of good and bad in every person. With life this translated to a firm belief that there would be good events in life and bad events. But the bad ones didn't make the good any less good.

Sirius had been through something bad and he was in pain in all the ways a human could be in pain. But these flickers of light proved that eventually the pain would subside. Something or several good things would happen. Technically, something good had already happened.


End file.
